Myron knocked on the door. Nothing. He knocked a little harder. More nothing. He put his hand on the knob and gave it a small turn. The door was unlocked. He debated just going in, but no, a strange adult entering the room of a college co-ed? Not a smart move. When he knocked again, the door finally opened.

“Mr. Bolitar?”

It wasn’t Francesca Moore. It was Clark Baldwin.

“Hey, Clark.”

Clark wore a T-shirt several sizes too large and checkered boxer shorts that even Myron’s dad would consider retro. His face was pale, his eyes bloodshot. “What are you doing here?” he asked Myron.

“I could ask you the same question.”

“Uh, I go to school here. I live here.”

“Oh,” Myron said. “You and Francesca are roommates?”

“Suitemates, yeah.”

“I didn’t know.”

“No reason you should,” Clark said.

True that.

“There are six of us,” Clark continued, feeling the need to explain or perhaps get his bearings. “Three guys, three girls. It’s the twenty-first century. Co-ed dorms, co-ed rooms, transgender bathrooms, we got it all.”

“Can I come in?” Myron asked.

From behind him, a male voice said, “What’s going on, Clark?”

“Go back to sleep, Matt,” Clark said. “It’s nothing.”

Clark slipped outside into the corridor and closed the door behind him. “Why are you here?”

“I came to talk to Francesca,” Myron said.

Something crossed his face. “What about?”

“About the econ final,” Myron said. “I hear it’s going to be a bitch.”

Clark made a face. “That supposed to be funny?”

“Well, I admit it’s not one of my better lines but—”

“Mom said you and Cousin Win are trying to find Rhys.”

Myron nodded. “We are.”

“But Francesca doesn’t know anything about that.”

Myron spared him the flailing-in-a-haystack metaphor. “She may know more than she thinks she knows.”

Clark shook his head. “She would have told me,” he said.

Patience, Myron thought. If you’re standing in front of a haystack, flail in that one before you move on. Or something like that. In short, stay patient for now with Clark.

“You two must be pretty tight,” Myron said.

“Francesca is my best friend.”

“You grew up together?”

“Yes. But there’s a lot more to it than that.”

A door opened down the corridor. A boy stumbled out as only a college student waking up early can.

“She’s the only one who got it,” Clark continued. “You know what I mean?”

Myron did, but he said, “Pretend I don’t.”

“We were just kids. We were only in fifth grade.”

“I remember. Mr. Hixon’s class.”

“Dixon.”

“Right, sorry. Dixon. Go on.”

Clark swallowed and rubbed his chin. “So we’re just little kids. Francesca and I were friends, I guess, but we didn’t hang out or anything. You know what that age is like, right?”

Myron nodded. “Boys hung out with boys, girls with girls.”

“Right. But then everything . . . I mean, both our little brothers just”—Clark snapped his fingers—“vanished. Like that. Do you not get what that did to us?”